What if one day you woke up and didn’t remember the love of your life? That’s exactly what happened to Laura Faganello, a young woman in Canada whose real-life love story has touched hearts around the world, and even inspired the film Hi Nanna.

In April 2017, while setting up for an event in Langford, a pole came crashing down on Laura’s head. The 23-year-old suffered a traumatic brain injury, wiping away nearly all her memories, including her marriage to her husband, Brayden, whom she had been happily married to for just nine months.

“I remember the sound it made when it hit my head. I've had nightmares about it ever since,” she said. When she woke up, Laura believed she was 17 again and had no idea who the man beside her was. “He said good morning to me so calmly, but I was terrified. I didn’t know him. I wanted to scream, ‘Who are you?!’”

That morning wasn’t an isolated incident. For weeks, even months, Laura would wake up in fear, confused, sometimes screaming or in tears. Their wedding album lay on the coffee table. Their belongings were intertwined. But in her heart, Brayden was a stranger. She had to relearn how to read, write, and speak, all while navigating the heartbreak of not remembering her own love story.

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“I hoped and prayed that one day, I’d look at him and it would all come back. But it never did,” she said. Brayden, now 25, was heartbroken but never gave up. He left her sweet notes every day, whispered “I love you” even when it frightened her, and stayed by her side with patience and quiet hope.

“I was committed to her. I loved her. That hadn’t changed,” he said.

Eventually, Laura reached a turning point. She was tired of feeling like a victim. Though she couldn’t recall choosing him, she saw the man in front of her, kind, silly, steadfast and decided to give love a second chance. She took off her wedding ring and told Brayden she wanted to start from the beginning. And so, they began dating again from scratch. Mini-golf. Dinner dates. Long walks.

Endless re-runs of The Office and Parks and Recreation. She asked him questions, told him the same stories over and over, and he listened every time. He read to her before bed and left little notes to brighten her mornings.

“Slowly, I started to fall for him again. I missed him when we weren’t together. I laughed at his jokes. I bragged about him. He became my best friend, my crush, and then, my love,” she shared.

Though she never regained her old memories, Laura found something new: a fresh love, built on choice rather than memory.

“Love is a choice,” she wrote. “And I am choosing to love Brayden.”

On August 20, after a summer of dating all over again, Brayden got down on one knee, and Laura said Yes. Again.

“We turned the hardest trial of our lives into the most beautiful blessing: the chance to fall in love all over again.”

Source : NZ Herald , filmiitalks, cine__muchatlu
Image Credit : NZ Herald, BookMyShow